2016/03/09

Calendar of Longwinter2

One of the challenges of Longwinter is that time is limited and with the slow healing rules (long rest = 1 week, short rest = 1 day), time passes quickly. At first I thought I'd generate the weather completely, using a few complex weather tables. After a single play test, it turned out to be a rather silly idea. :'(

Instead, I'm pre-building the time table for the icebox. The reason it's a bit spread out is because I'm going to layout the whole thing as pages for taking notes on what the PCs are doing. Eventually.

It is the month of Rawearth

Week 1 - first light snows fall, Christmas wonderland, cool air, birds in trees (1: light breeze, 2: gentle snow, 3: rain and mud, 4: clear and cold, 5: wind with the smell of raw earth, 6: overcast and menacing). - 30% chance rain or snow makes tracking difficult.
Mon:
Tue:
Wed:
Thu:
Fri:
Sat:
Sun:

Week 2 - the soils harden, weak sun rays melt some of the snow, frosts and mists in the mornings, the last leaves fall (1: calm and cold and damp, 2: depressing drizzle from an overcast sky, 3: sudden, short flurries of snow, 4: clear with the smell of wood smoke, 5: an odd rumbling thunderstorm over the mountains, 6: a cold and grim day). - 50% chance sodden mud and slush makes tracking easy.
Mon: - Firstday of the Tsar's Mass when the Blue Pig shall be shanked.
Tue:
Wed:
Thu:
Fri:
Sat:
Sun:

Week 3 - the days brighten, then a snow starts to fall. First light, then heavier. Soon it is snowing without cease until all is white (1: bright and cold, 2: bright and warm, 3: light snow, 4: heavy snow, 5: blizzard, 6: white out). - heavy snow makes travel and tracking difficult, fresh snow makes tracking easy.
Mon:
Tue:
Wed:
Thu:
Fri: - Potnik Solstice, celebration of the Grey Walker,
Sat: - Tsarist Solstice, celebration of the unvictored Son, Feast of the Lower Line, the Black Sabbath that rekindles the Fire of Life.
Sun:

Week 4 - the snowfall ends, the landscape is blanketed in white and silence, an eagle flies soundlessly (1: calm and cold, 2: a vicious cold snap, 3: in a sudden warm spell a snowdrop blooms, 4: light snowfall and a rainbow haze, 5: dark clouds gather and press in close, 6: hazy clouds and an eclipse of the sun) - cold snaps makes survival checks difficult.
Mon:
Tue:
Wed: - St. Douglas' Day when the Fir is celebrated.
Thu:
Fri:
Sat:
Sun: - Eve of the Holy Pig when the pork is smoked.

It is the month of Glowgrow

Week 5 - the weather seems to hold its breath, ice and frosts sparkle on the trees, sleighs with bells jingle in the streets (1: morning frosts, 2: heavy hoar frosts beard the trees like old men, 3: calm and clear, 4: cold and windy, 5: light rainbow fog, 6: clouds gather above the mountain peaks like a flock of storm crows) - on frosty days tracking is easy.
Mon:
Tue:
Wed: - Shkraeti Solstice of the Darkened Heart
Thu:
Fri: - First Levelsday of Rustum
Sat:
Sun:

Week 6 - howling banshee winds bring dark clouds racing from the Cold Dwellings of Father Frost (1: rushing gales set shutters flapping and snow flurries flying, 2: amidst strong winds a sudden hailstorm hits, 3: unusual red lightning strikes the ridges, 4: sleet falls in dour sheets, 5: rolling like a wall, the cold pushes fog and frost before it, 6: sudden silence and snow that falls, seeming without end) - in wind, ranged attacks are difficult, in sleet or snow tracking, travel and survival checks are difficult.
Mon:
Tue:
Wed:
Thu:
Fri: - Second Levelsday of Rustum
Sat:
Sun:

Week 7
Mon:
Tue:
Wed:
Thu:
Fri: - Great Levelsday of Rustum, start of the 36 days of Peregrination
Sat:
Sun:

Week 8

It is the month of Icicles

Week 9
Week 10
Week 11
Week 12

It is the month of Littlegrass

Week 13
Week 14

Week 15
Mon:
Tue:
Wed:
Thu:
Fri:
Sat: - Wintersdead Eve
Sun: - New Year's Day

Week 16

Crowning the Rainbow King?

2016/03/08

d110 Pseudo-Magical Tomes

Transported to WTF from Cauldrons & Clerics (my less amusingly named former blog), a cullated list of tomes with great help and motivation from the G+ OSR Community (looking at Grey Knight, Chris Tamm, Keith J Davies and Noah Stevens in particular).

  1. Teobaldik's Necrologicon – a book on the theory of necromancy.
  2. The Voerrecian Interpretations of the Ancestors – a book on necromancy.
  3. Childred's Vivifective Sourcebook – a book on reanimating the dead.
  4. Forma Pelluriana – a book on shape shifting.
  5. Philip's Draconiforma – a book on shape shifting with an emphasis on dragons.
  6. Miscellania Pyrologica – a book on miscellaneous fire magics.
  7. Onin's Elementary Pyrotechnics – a book on explosive and elemental spells.
  8. Anthologia Cryomantica – a book on ice spells and weather forecasting in winter.
  9. Nevan's Codex Nevens – a book on snow magic.
  10. The Collected Scrolls of the Chapter of Susurrations – a book on snake magic.
  11. Principia Velenosa – the principles of poisons.
  12. Childred’s Resurrected Works – a book on raising the dead.
  13. Echo’s Soothing Chrestomathy – a book of healing and cleansing spells.
  14. Indra’s Waters of Life – a book on healing draughts and rains.
  15. Iz Sidri’s Manual of the Protection of Sacred Life – a book on hunting the undead.
  16. De Aque Sancte – a book on holy waters of different sorts.
  17. Jillian’s Phantasmagoricystica – a book on phantasmal spells.
  18. Derigeur’s Mirror of Smoke – a book on illusion spells.
  19. Salic’s Lex Sanguifecta – a book on the law of blood magic.
  20. The Diary of a Leech – a book on blood magic and healing.
  21. Piniped’s By the Sword of the Gods – a book on holy weapons and enchantments
  22. The Crusade of the Interstices – a book on holy battle magic and travelling the Paths of the Voids.
  23. Ulrik’s Monographia Insomniae – a book on nightmare magic.
  24. The Umbral Tome – an anonymous book on shadow magic.
  25. Iz Kronske’s Theoriae Petromantiae – on the theories of rock magic.
  26. 2nd Principia Geomantica – the higher principles of earth magics, anonymous.
  27. Hydromantia of Laurent od Sushotsk – an introductory tome of water magic.
  28. Elementaria Aquatica – on water elementals.
  29. Encyclopaedia Phytomantica – a compendium of plant spells.
  30. Shrub Wizard for Life, by W. E. Bos – an overview of shrub and tree magic.
  31. Portando il fine – anonymous book of death magic.
  32. Lilander’s Entropia – a book of death and entropic magic.
  33. De Rarum Daemonicum – a book on daemons and their summoning.
  34. The Excorcist’s Cookbook – a book on fighting daemonic possession.
  35. The Fires of Hell, by E. Quimble – a book on hellfire.
  36. Codex Contegatiae – a collection of works on protective spells.
  37. The Golden Armour of Nilnamur – a book on protective magic.
  38. Magnifica Abjuratica – a poorly spelled book on more protective magic.
  39. Filinda’s Tricks and Traps – a book of magic tricks and camouflage tips.
  40. Der Doppelganger – a book on doppelgangers and the changing of faces.
  41. Petra Alchimistica – a book on the philosopher’s stone
  42. Solvents Versal and Universal – a book on acid magics.
  43. The Arrow of Acid and Other Elixirs – a book on acid arrows and various odd elixirs.
  44. Miffle’s Meta-metallurgica – a book on meta-metallurgy and alchemy.
  45. Iota’s Energia Mystica – a book on spells of force.
  46. Theresia’s Telekinaesthetics – a book on telekinetics.
  47. Cooking Clerics, by W. Itch – a book of potion recipes for the budding witch.
  48. De Orbis Malefex – a book on curses and evil eyes.
  49. Tellurian’s the Mastery of Puppets – a book on voodoo and curses.
  50. Riding the Lightning, by I. Stormborn – a book of electric spells and magics.
  51. A Rare Light, by McFilinda – a book of light spells.
  52. Principiae Lucens en Spectrals – a book on spells of the electromagnetic spectrum.
  53. Channelling for Chumps, by U. Krum – an advanced book on war magic.
  54. The Death Dealer – a semi-autobiographical book on battle magic.
  55. Hippie Hexen Herbarium – a compendium of herbal potions and decoctions.
  56. Opus Herbata – more herbal spells.
  57. The Clock of Fate – a book on trapping elemental souls in clockwork cages.
  58. Vaporous Layaboutry – a book on steampunk magic.
  59. The Clockwork Goblin, by S. Tubbins – a book on automata.
  60. Origen’s Exothermonomicon – a book on magical bombs.
  61. Shilben’s The Perversions of the Mind – a book on psionic spells.
  62. Handel’s Tabulations of the Razor – a book on domination and mind control.
  63. Sachsen’s Magic Axe – a book of heavy metal bard spells.
  64. The Thunder of the Gods – a book of loud sonic spells.
  65. Karver’s Resilience of Rust – a book on the rust monster and the replication of its powers.
  66. Cyclopedia Golemica – a book on the manufacture of golems.
  67. I, Golem – a semi-autobiographical magic book on golem programming.
  68. Wyrding for Women – a book on divination.
  69. The Scissors of Life – a tome on astrology and curses.
  70. The Seven Forbidden and Hidden Tomes of Unknown Contents: the Skin Book of Innumerable Eyes, Ulrik’s Gazes Beyond the Void, the Six Tongues of the Fast Stars, Origen’s The Stars Like Dust, Curiosites of de Vooid, Handel’s Calculations of the Immortal Mind, Krasius’ Rips in the Sail of Time.
  71. The Perpidexicon of Knaardge - insane geometry and esoteric poetry (Chris Tamm)
  72. Mysteries of True Form: A pamphlet on the regular solids and their magical connections to higher planes of existence. (Grey Knight)
  73. Agamu's Matters Relating to the Care of Rulers: A carefully-worded treatise useful for those wishing to become an éminence grise.  Without going so far as to directly state anything incriminating, to the discerning reader the tome gives tips on controlling from behind the throne, including some subtle spells which superficially appear beneficial to the recipient. (Grey Knight)
  74. A Booke of Babie-Catching - a lavishly illustratted twoe kolor toom desined fore de expert midwyf hoe woudde improewe haar skilles with severale jusefull spelles and ointments for Healing, de Easing off Paines, de Blessinge of Chinderens ande de Skaring Awaye off Eville Spiritts. (LR)
  75. Deringle's Spelling in Spelles: a treatise on the importance of properly archaic spelling for maximum magical magnificence. (LR)
  76. On The Discovery of Changelings : a worn folio illuminated manuscript describing the methods of finding out children and adults whose forms have been replaced by faerie creatures. None of the spells actually work or do anything. The book radiates subtle magic a la Nystul's Magic Aura (Noah Stevens)
  77. Riobalt's On the Permutations of the Elements - a weighty alchemical tome on ways to transmute gold into other, less valuable metals and ores through the application of time and effort. (LR)
  78. This collection of scrolls is marked with an ancient glyph for PROTECTION, and, on the inside, the words for BANISHING and DESTRUCTION in beautiful illuminated script. It seems at first reading a series of instructions for managing safety from various entities ranging from bothersome to evil. Upon closer reading, it is just that, only it's talking about ways to effectively secure your house from a variety of household pests and nuisances. Some of the suggested tactics are magical, others mundane. (Shoe Skogen)
  79. Kaasandra's Tome of Prophecies Ignored - a pseudo-autobiographical work detailing the woe that befell those who did not heed the prophecies of Kaasandra of Nuurt. Among the dross are several useful spells for making people forget small things, like where they left the keys yesterday, as well as a rare version of the ancient Sumoninge of Sockes, which is a curse that removes one sock, never a pair, from the target's luggage, baggage, chest or wardrobe. :) (LR)
  80. Fulster's Transnominacon - a tome with a lot of name magic, including spells for permanently altering the true names of other wizards, weakening their spellcraft. (LR)
  81. Cereth's Manual of Nothing: creative uses for voids, holes, and absences of things.  Includes instructions on how to build your own "hole box", with which to collect holes from things.  Cereth recommends taking the keyhole from your house with you when you go out — you can even leave the key behind to confuse burglars a bit more!  Advanced topics include how to sew several holes together to make a net. (Grey Knight)
  82. Zuiker's Pyscathonomica Profunda - seventeen different fish based magics and a guide to how to catch a fish without actually cheating very obviously. (LR)
  83. The Loosening of the Arrow - a mystical work that describes archery and its practice, as well as several enchantments and evocations that aid the teaching and firing of arrows from a bow. (Noah Stevens)
  84. Il Sas Domine by Peotra the Second - a tome on the properties of divine stones and the uses of standing stones in divine magic. (LR)
  85. Beyond the  Studies of the Vermicelli Mentali or Mind Worms, sometimes translated as Mind of the Flying Spaghetti Monster  - those magics so corrupting that merely reading them lodges them in the magic users brain, where they corrupt him and drive him toward malign Kaos. (LR and Keith J Davies)
  86. Lo! Apprehension of the Great Noodley One – a book of magic tricks, biology and numerology. (LR and Keith J Davies)
  87. Biblia Pastariffica - over thirty-seven fully fledged pasta based magics, including the ritual for summoning Tensorio's Floating Plate of Pasta, capable of carrying up to 33 pounds of pasta, as well as Pelatio's Instant Pesto, which automagically transforms available ingredients into a thermally treated purée perfect for adding to cooked pasta. (LR) Teratic/Mythos version: including living creatures... but you are compelled to eat heartily. (Keith J Davies)
  88. Kompendio Kompetitivo de Mensen Pugnalant - a compendium of spells to incite greater competitiveness in testosterone fuelled competitors, written in execrable vulgate by the Ringmaster Iu Dauron. (LR)
  89. Movements of the Ents and the Magical Properties Thereof : a work in low Entish, or perhaps Sahaugin (in the 2nd edition) that describes a single spell that may be learned by studying the prolonged mating dances of Ents that sometimes take up to a thousand years to observe in their entirety (Noah Stevens)
  90. The Temporal Compendium to the Movements of the Ents - includes a short discourse on trans-temporality and a spell for the chronopetrification of the participant, allowing him to observe an entire entish mating dance in the form of a petroglyph inscribed upon a cliff or other large, flat surface. (LR)
  91. Zwibli's Schweinmenschen und Vogelfrauleinen - a short volume on defensive polymorphication and the determination of compatible animal forms for opponents.
  92. Ariog od Tamakau's The Way of All Flesh - a grossly padded and voluble volume detailing magics for the creation of flesh golems and electrick zombies.
  93. Sambana's Swordes of Soursery - a fascinating volume on all the different magical swords you will never possess as well as a recipe for crafting a sword +1½.
  94. Elrick's of Yon Coult of de Blaue Oeyster - a treatise on planeswalking, limbo, black blades and the summoning of coultosauroses.
  95. Historie of Daemons & Wizards, an Illustrated Compendium - a guide to different daemon summoners and what happened to them, also includes a do-it-yourself summoning ritual. Guaranteed safe or your money backe.
  96. De Waggone Withoute Horses - a story by the half-mad wizard Necropius dealing with time-travel and meeting the "ghost in the shell".
  97. Visshalt's Kompendium Delique Portee - a tome on the portals into the fae realms and certain fae spells.
  98. Oeilburforse's Vilis a Levioribus Tractandis Hora Prandii - dealing with rapid and effective spells against liches as well as magic to keep dinner warm while you go adventuring.
  99. Oot's Giokando Per Vintere - a tome of wine magic and how to regularly win while gambling, forbidden in most casinos.
  100. Piniped's Eminently Useful Tome - a magical tome of numerous spells for dealing with poisons, digestive issues and other similar afflictions. Comes with fifty magically replenishing empty, thin, soft sheets of paper in the back of the book.
  101. Bursting of the Chest - a guide to the many ways that the heart may break through love.
  102. Two-hundred Names for Snow - a book that purports to summon the soul of snow.
  103. A Tale of a False Horse - a tome dedicated to the transmogrification of the horse into the false horse.
  104. The Naming of the Wrom - a collection of scrolls penned by the half-dyslexic wizzard Monomorphos of Mestemium, which may help bind a worm to the summoner.
  105. The Bonding and the Beast - a treatise on the creation of an inhumane bond between warrior and warbeast, akin to the link between wizard and familiar, but more profoundly manly and warrior-like.
  106. The Blade-Book of Mechthonos - a chtonic codex engraved on thirty-three copper daggers dedicated to the arts of blade-ah-sutra.
  107. Nirvana for Nyarlhotep - a short collection of binary beads that provide enlightenment to extra-prismatic beings descending to the third dimensional plane.
  108. The Zen of Motor Maintenance - a magic tome that teaches a cycle-wizard to power their cycle through sheer will, even after the body of the cycle has died.
  109. Kolok's Cockles by V. Twine - a strange book on the soul-cycles of the common cockle vendors of the port of Kolok.
  110. The Eleventh Age and the Comportment of the Psychopomps - a guide to how to behave around the guides leading the soul into the twelfth age. 

More Fighters (bit by bit)

In the post entitled, succinctly, "The Fighter", I described the basic Fighter of WTF and a few subtypes. I'm adding another subtype here.

Speed Freak
The speed freak's mind is like a compass, stopping at nothing. He's got fire in his pocket and he's lit up like a rocket, veins ablaze with the scurrying, urging, demanding need for speed.

  • HD: 3d10
  • HP: 20 + 3 * Con modifier
  • Spells: cost 3 hit points or ability points per spell level, cantrips count as level one, rituals vary.
  • Armor proficiency (roll d6): 1: light, 2: light and medium, 3: light and shields, 4: light, medium and shields, 5: shields only, 6: metal armors and shields only,
  • Weapon proficiency: all weapons with a single damage die (so no great swords, they deal 2d6),
  • Tools (roll d6): 1: mechanic's tools, 2: instrument (drums, bass guitar, trumpet or harmonica), 3: tinker's tools, 4: carpenter's tools, 5: gambling tools, 6: druggist's tools
  • Saving Throws (roll d6): 1–2: Str and Dex, 3: Dex and Con, 4: Dex and Int, 5: Dex and Wis, 6: Dex and Cha,
  • Skills: as per PHB (p. 72)

Starting abilities:

  • Fighting Style (roll d6): 1: archery (+2 ranged), 2: dueling (+2 dmg with 1H weapon and no shield), 3: two-weapon fighting (add ability mod to second attack damage), 4: spear-fighting (+2 to hit with polearms), 5: dirty fighting (+1d6 sneak attack damage as thief), 6: pistolero (+2 dmg with pistols).
  • Second Wind (as PHB 72) - self heal for 1d10 + 3 hp per short rest,
  • Super Surge - two additional actions in a round, 1 times per short rest,
Speed Freak abilities:
  • Faster and Faster - every time the speed freak rolls maximum damage on damage dice (e.g. 4 on a 1d4 or 13 on a 1d13), the speed demon gets an extra attack.
  • Death Shot - can use reaction to make one final attack on being dropped to 0 hp, the death shot is an automatic critical if it hits.
Level up as fighter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7tTZTF2CyY

2016/03/06

d62 Table: Plague Stalks These Lands


... and you encounter:
  1. philosophers waiting in dread symposium for the plague to arrive, 
  2. a sailor preaching the end of the world,
  3. a boat beached on the shore, filled with torn sacks of corn and the corpses of plague rats,
  4. a woman having visions of the spirits of the dead,
  5. a vision - a spirit of a divine being walking silently, judgmentally,
  6. a vision - a spirit of light striking this or that part of a person's body,
  7. a man uttering the holiest of names trying to exorcise a spirit,
  8. a holy sanctuary full of hungry refugees,
  9. a sanctuary filled with the dying,
  10. two bodies and a dying dog by a crossroad shrine,
  11. a couple barricaded in their room, hiding,
  12. a young seamstress crying for help, locked away in a cellar,
  13. a shouting widower calling the spirits to take him,
  14. a traveler beating a door, begging to be let in,
  15. a dream of a spirit standing, looming, over a body,
  16. a voice from the sky prophesying that your name is written among those about to be struck,
  17. a peddler struck by a sudden seizure,
  18. a wine merchant grabbed by a sudden fever,
  19. a lethargic youth mumbling in waking fever dreams,
  20. a beggar crying on the ground with buboes in the groin,
  21. a violently delirious inn-keep,
  22. a young woman lying in deathless sleep in a tower surrounded by thorn bushes,
  23. a confused old lady who has forgot all who are familiar,
  24. a pile of dead, buboed rats ripening in the sun,
  25. a soldier lying neglected and comatose beneath a baobab tree,
  26. a sleepless priest, victim of distorted, paranoid imagination,
  27. an excitable student rushing here and there, crying at the top of his voice,
  28. a hungry nurse with trouble eating,
  29. a butcher mad with hunger throwing himself off a height,
  30. a shepherd in great pain from swollen buboes,
  31. a dying driver broken out in lentil-sized black pustules,
  32. a maid suddenly vomiting blood as she speaks,
  33. bodies stacked in the open like firewood,
  34. a blood-soaked priestess lying next to a fresh grave,
  35. a breeze that brings the stench of death,
  36. a hungry ox lowing sadly, still yoked to a plough,
  37. a ditch filled with bloated horses and dogs,
  38. a ruined, burned out freehold,
  39. a farmhouse full of desiccated corpses,
  40. seven men and three women holed up in a villa, waiting out the plague,
  41. an ignorant man peddling snake heads as a cure,
  42. a large pile of clothes, blood-spattered,
  43. a manor, closed off and barred, with music drifting from a window,
  44. a friendly necromancer, skeletons carrying a large pot in tow,
  45. a group drinking to oblivion in a tavern,
  46. a candle shop, abandoned in haste,
  47. a hangman who hanged himself,
  48. a crone selling medicinal flowers and perfumes,
  49. a cart with packages of pungent medicines and a dead cat,
  50. a wagon full of dead rats and birds,
  51. a gravedigger, philosophical and immune,
  52. an abandoned nephew with a broken leg,
  53. a sick builder killing himself in the street with a brick,
  54. a quantity of bodies laud out at the door,
  55. a trench with bodies stored like bales in a ship,
  56. a canal filled with bloating corpses,
  57. a raven perched on a skull, murmuring, "evermore,"
  58. an ominous green comet glows sickly in the sky,
  59. an unbeliever, hung for bringing the wrath of the spirits,
  60. a well, poisoned by the dead,
  61. a lynch mob after a local heretic poet,
  62. a stockpile of food, contaminated by the corpse of its owner,